I love teaching and learning with young children, this is where I share my ideas.

Welcome to Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten! My class blog is the place I share information about some of the fun learning activities we are doing at school. I hope to provide parents with insight into what we are doing, and why, and to share ideas with other early childhood educators. Please don't use the photos or text of this blog without permission, but please do use any ideas you find useful. Thank you for stopping by!

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Insanely easy math fun that will make your children beg to learn!

As I walked by the Target Dollar Spot this week, I spotted this little treasure! 200 mini erasers for $3 - and it's packaged in a divided container!

This is a perfect math activity for our little ones to enjoy this spring. Think of all the math they can learn as they play: counting, sorting, graphing, patterning, 1-1 correspondence... there are so many possibilities.

I came up with a few more too - how could you use these for a Venn Diagram? It's easy enough to make your own blank diagram - simply trace around a large bowl twice, overlapping the two circles as you do. Can your child sort eggs/things with blue/eggs with blue? How about bunnies/pink things/pink bunnies?

It would be easy to graph these too: have your child take a handful, and sort them. Then line them up, and compare the rows of erasers. What are there the most of? The fewest? How many more bunnies than carrots?

Have a slightly older child? Can they add 3 bunnies and 6 eggs? Two carrots with blue edges, and 4 carrots with yellow edges? Can they use the erasers to answer a word problem: If I had 7 eggs, but gave 3 away, how many eggs would be left?

If your child has mastered addition and subtraction, try having them work on early multiplication skills by making a grid with the erasers. How many is 3 rows of 5? Can they show 12 erasers in rows and columns? Can they do it another way?

I'm looking forward to sharing my new eraser collection with the kiddos! How would you use it?!

About Me

I've been teaching early childhood since 1993, when I started teaching first grade in Arlington ISD. From 1999 to 2014 I ran a preschool from my home, and I added kindergarten in 2011. I closed my school when my family relocated to California, and now I create teaching products to share via TeachersPayTeachers. I cannot imagine my life without teaching, learning, and young children!